www.flickr.com I’m still working to dig out all the deferred detritus on my desk following the ramp-up and hosting of the recent Association of Arts Administration Educators conference here in Madison last week. It was an extraordinary event, with rooms full of smart, funny, and insightful people, all eager to learn and share about developing […]
Archives for April 2008
Focusing energy off-line
I’m playing host to an international conference later this week, welcoming my colleagues from degree-granting programs in arts and cultural management from around the world. I expect great conversations and engaging arguments about how we all find, enroll, prepare, and support innovative and productive leaders for arts and cultural organizations. I also expect to drink […]
In thanks and praise to Fan Taylor
The field of arts and cultural management lost a glorious voice this week with the passing of Fan Taylor at the age of 94. I am a direct beneficiary of Fan’s extraordinary and field-defining work in managing and advancing the arts. And I had the great pleasure of a continuing conversation with her over the […]
Bruce Sterling on the future of everything
Since I seem to be on a ”’technology and society” kick this week, I might as well point to this fascinating keynote (at least to me) by science fiction author Bruce Sterling. Speaking to a conference of interface and interaction design professionals, Sterling deflates a whole series of common assumptions about the future of digital […]
Removing one more reason for institutions
Public radio’s Marketplace program had a segment on yet another social networking and collective action web site that promises to change the way we interact and organize. This one has significant implications for some of the core functions of arts organizations. The Point seeks to solve a vexing challenge for group action: confirming the critical […]
Progressive disclosure
I’m often struck by the complexity of communications and marketing in a nonprofit arts organization. Not only are arts marketers speaking to multiple audiences with radically different expectations and knowledge of the art form, but they are also doing so with limited budget, staff, and time in an increasingly noisy and cluttered environment. A core […]
On recession and expression
Yesterday I was a guest on WNYC’s Soundcheck (about 15 minutes into the audio file), to discuss the challenges nonprofit arts organizations face during economic hard times. The lead-in to the conversation was this article by Daniel Wakin in the New York Times. The Swiss bank behemoth, UBS, had decided to pull its $10-million annual […]
Comic distractions for a Thursday morning
Those who haven’t watched the Ricky Gervais BBC/HBO series ”Extras” missed a brilliantly self-mocking comedic turn by Sir Ian McKellen, describing the secrets to his acting technique: ”What I do is pretend to be the person I am portraying in the film or play.” Idiotic and compelling all at once. (Full episode info here.)
Who owns the idea of what the campus means?
Mark McVay posts an interesting dilemma for architects of new university buildings. Specifically, in the design and development process, ”Who owns the idea of what the campus means? Who speaks for the whole university?” Adding structures to a long-standing campus is a complex endeavor. Architects, and the campus stewards of the project, want something that […]
What’s your U-Index?
Jonathan Clements in the Wall Street Journal explores the connection between the way we spend our time and our sense of well-being. His reference point is a new study entitled ”National time accounting: The currency of life” (abstract here, full PDF download here). The authors asked participants to track how they spent their day, and […]